Week 3: “ Indira is India, India is Indira ” Lecture 6

1. Week 3: “Indira is India, India is Indira” Lecture 6 Prof Prerna Singh

2. AfterNehru?

3. Pressing Problems • Foreign: • War with Pakistan (1965)

4. War with Pakistan

5. Pressing Problems • Foreign: • War with Pakistan (1965) • Domestic: • Question of National Language

7. Pressing Problems • Foreign: • War with Pakistan (1965) • Domestic: • Question of National Language • Problem of Food Shortages

8. LalBahadurShastri, Prime Minister of India, 1964-1966

9. Indira Gandhi

10. Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India, 1966-1977, 1980-1984 Why Indira? Vote getter Could be controlled

11. IndiraGandhi • Forged direct link with masses • Populist “socialist” initiatives • Split the Congress Party • Congress (Indira)

12. “Indira is India, India is Indira” • Drive towards personalization and centralization of power • Establishment of powerful connection with the masses

13. Indira Gandhi • Highly Controversial Figure • Savior of the Masses or • Tyrannical Villain • Amma or • ‘Nazi Priestess’

14. Indira Gandhi Common Scholarly Assessment: • Deinstitutionalizing India • Weakening Congress party, bureaucracy and other institutions • Undermining Indian democracy Revisionist Assessment: • Situated Mrs Gandhi’s problems in the context of the number and magnitude of the problems

15. Indira Gandhi • Was Mrs Gandhi more a cause or consequence of the personalization and deinstitutionalization of the Indian polity?

16. Indira Gandhi AshisNandy: Psychoanalysis of Indira, as a politician and Indian society

17. Mahatma Gandhi with a young Indira Nehru

18. Indira Gandhi What kind of mass sentiments allow authoritarian politics to come to the fore?

19. Indira Gandhi • Product of Four Intellectual Currents: • Crisis of National Faith • Rise of Post-Independence generation • Cracks in the Nehruvian edifice are beginning to show • Humiliating defeat in Sino-Indian War • Low economic growth • Agricultural Problem • High poverty • Abysmal social services • Vast numbers of illiterate, rural, disgruntled poor • Land grab programs • Rise of Revolutionary Class Movements

20. Indira Gandhi • Product of Four Intellectual Currents: • Crisis of National Faith • Idea that India needed Realpolitik • Against Gandhi, Nehru • “Pure Politics” • Gandhi as an aberration • Tough politics for Tough Times • Middle classes and intelligentsia cheered her on as a “real leader”

21. Indira Gandhi • Product of Four Intellectual Currents: • Crisis of National Faith • Idea that India needed Realpolitik • Middle class fear of Chaos and Disorder • Economic problems • Lack of growth • Corruption • Social Unrest • Protests, Strikes, Riots, bandhs

22. Indira Gandhi • Product of Four Intellectual Currents: • Crisis of National Faith • Idea that India needed Realpolitik • Middle class fear of Chaos and Disorder • Idea of a plural, democratic society was losing its appeal

23. Indira Gandhi • Product of Four Intellectual Currents: • Crisis of National Faith • Idea that India needed Realpolitik • Middle class fear of Chaos and Disorder • Idea of a plural, democratic society was losing its appeal • Economic interests over civil liberties

24. Indira Gandhi • Product of Four Intellectual Currents: • Crisis of National Faith • Idea that India needed Realpolitik • Middle class fear of Chaos and Disorder • Idea of a plural, democratic society was losing its appeal

25. Indira Gandhi • Samuel Huntington (1968): • Importance of political institutions, esp political parties • Social mobilization in the absence of strong political parties leads to political instability

26. Indira Gandhi • Personalization and deinstitutionalization of Congress and other institutions • Personalization and Deinstitutionalization had begun before Mrs Gandhi • Inherited weak, faction-ridden Congress + • Economic distress • Socio-political Mobilization = Crisis of Governability

27. Indira Gandhi • …product of the situation BUT • greatly aggravated situation

28. Indira Gandhi Established direct link with voters BUT Undermined the party Made electoral promises BUT Party not strong enough to fulfill these promises

29. Indira Gandhi • BUT left untouched: • Poverty • Provision of essential social services • Land redistribution • Populist “socialist” initiatives: • Nationalization of banks • Abolition of privy purses

30. Personalization of Power and Politicization of Institutions Party Abandoned even nominal intra-party democracy Made state party structures subservient to central high command Appointed key functionaries Promoted “yes men” State Institutions: Civil Service Judiciary Parliament Constitution

31. Next Week…Indira Gandhi’s Darkest Hours